Tag Archives: Research

Ever have underground cables that need quick repair but have no implement to help? Well fear no more! Designed by Amos Winter, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, the robot takes pointers from the Atlantic razor clam a large mollusk found along the Atlantic coast of North America. Through analyzing how it burrows through muddy […]

Remember our little RoboJelly, from so long ago? Well let’s take a look at its bigger cousin, Cyro. Cyro is a robotic jellyfish created by Virginia Tech College of Engineering, modeled after the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish. Sporting a 5’7″ diameter bell (on average) and weighing 170 pounds, Cyro is the closest to a human-sized jellyfish […]

You know, a lot of robots these days are pretty specialized for some purpose or another. But here we have a robot that can navigate both water and land. Psyche! Actually, it’s not the fact that the Salamandra Robotica II robot is multifunctional that makes it interesting. The reason it’s so unique is because of […]

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) has been working on a way to grasp onto asteroids to hold on while drilling into them. Ideally, you want some system that can reliably anchor a robot to an uneven surface while simultaneously providing enough downforce in microgravity to allow for sample collection, and this is where the microspines come […]

This video fascinated the world when it was first released. The robot is comprised of a balloon filled with coffee grinds. Simple… and the revolutionary concept of “jamming” the particles together by drawing a partial vacuum has allowed this hand to grasp a wide variety of objects that even humans have a hard time holding on to. […]

By autonomously navigating the water’s surface, Seaswarm proposes a new system for ocean-skimming and oil removal. Seaswarm uses a photovoltaic powered conveyor belt made of a thin nanowire mesh to propel itself and collect oil. The nanomaterial, patented at MIT, can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil. The flexible conveyor belt softly rolls […]

Scientists from the University of Cambridge are using robotics from the LEGO MINDSTORMS robot set to help produce samples of synthetic bone tissue. The team uses hydroxyapatite-gelatin composites to create the synthetic bone, which has low energy costs and improved similarity to the tissues they are intended to replace. Synthetic bone can provide a vast […]